This market covers the normal Senate race in Nebraska; the winner will serve a 6-year term.
Will eventually resolve to the party which won the popular vote for the race, as determined by the local, state, and ultimately federal governments.
In the case the race is called by the major news organizations, the market may optionally resolve early.
This market covers events up to and including Election Day, November 5: if Party A's candidate X wins the popular vote that day, but intervening events cause the next inaugurated Senator to be from Party B, the market will resolve to Party A.
If candidate X switches party affiliations, the switch will not affect the outcome if it is after the beginning of Election Day, local time.
1,000
3.00Here's what I wrote about this race in the latest Manifold newsletter!
Nebraska (regular): Dan Osborn (Independent) vs. Sen. Deb Fischer (R)
Osborn win chances (The Hill model, which treats Osborn as a Democrat and seems a bit dubious): 14%
Who will Osborn caucus with? (Manifold, 15 traders): 77% Democrats, 6% Republicans, 17% neither
Expert forecasts: Likely R (Cook), Likely R (Sabato), Likely R (Inside Elections)
Polling average (538): R+1; Fischer 44.2%, Osborn 43.1%
Election result in 2018, a Democratic wave year: R+19 (Fischer vs. Raybould)
Election result in 2012, amid Obama's reelection: R+16 (Fischer vs. Kerrey)
Recent Nebraska presidential election results: Trump +19 (2020), Trump+25 (2016), Romney+22 (2012)
Manifolder commentary from April:
Magnus: There’s still a decent chance the Democrats will endorse Osborn. Either way, this isn’t going to be a close race.
Timothy Johnson: He might be better off if they don't officially endorse him…
There was a single poll in November that showed Biden down by 18 (53-35), and Dan Osborn winning 40-38. I don't quite believe that, but I could believe that he'll do much better than Biden.
Manifolder commentary from more recently:
Timothy Johnson: The latest poll showed Fischer winning by just one point, 39-38.
SemioticRivalry (on Discord): not gonna totally rule it out … osborn is doing the right stuff
Conflux commentary:
Nebraska is a red state. No Democrat has ever come close to winning there.
But Dan Osborn isn’t a Democrat. He’s a veteran, labor union leader (who led a strike at Kellogg’s Omaha plant), and independent. For now, anyway — if he wins, Manifold gives him a 77% chance of joining Bernie Sanders, Angus King, and the other members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Not caucusing with any party in the Senate would deny him committee assignments and other perks.) Multiply his 24% chance of victory with his 77% chance of caucusing with Democrats and you get a crazy 19% overall chance of a Democratic senator from Nebraska.
Instead, he’s running as an independent. There was some drama in the state Democratic party about whether to field a candidate; initially, they planned to endorse Osborn on May 18, but only three days before, Osborn said he wouldn’t be “charmed” or “schmoozed” and didn’t want the Democrats’ help. The state party originally looked for a write-in candidate, but ultimately decided not to field anyone. So Osborn’s shrewd strategy may have paid off: it’s a two-way race between him and incumbent Deb Fischer, and he seems like a true independent. (There is a chance he’ll caucus with no one, which would make him a true independent.)
I wouldn’t have guessed this race would be competitive at all. There have only been a handful of Independent vs. Republican races in red states like this: Kansas in 2014, Alaska in 2020. It’ll be an uphill battle for Osborn here, but the polls are very close. This will be an interesting race.
538 has a polling average now: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/senate/2024/nebraska/general/
oh it's at https://manifold.markets/ManifoldPolitics/which-party-will-win-the-us-senate-78078f7ff791
well I guess I lost a couple mana; should have paid attention